The Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith has long since figured in a first-rate post by Leo, but acquisitions for my weird fiction library sometimes require me to pinch the first and best Republican president right off the face of every penny, and it wasn’t until last month that I lucked into an affordable copy at Addall.com. The book really is a garden of unearthly, flower demon-type delights, so many thanks to editors Scott Connors and David E. Schultz. CAS shows that the baleful late Thirties zeitgeist is not lost on him with this fine Howardian sentiment near the end of a September 9, 1937 letter to Robert Barlow: “Incidentally, the word ‘civilization’ would make a jackal vomit in view of the general situation.” And another aside to Barlow in the same letter is as amusing as Howard’s sly suggestion that Lovecraft should fictionalize one of his own “sex adventures” in order to crack the spicies:

HPL, however, should have written [a story about the Last Sabbat] himself. I can’t hope to compete with him when it comes to New England setting and atmosphere; though perhaps the actual orgies of the Sabbat would be a little more in my line.

But what really caught my eye were several letters that may well have been discussed to death in Esoteric and Dagonian precincts; S. T. Joshi certainly cites one on page 639 of his Lovecraft biography. Still, it seems to me that the cumulative impact of the letters in question and a possible extra resonance for Howardists just might justify a blog-post. I’m referring to nothing less than an early attempt by CAS to save Derleth from himself — and more importantly, save Lovecraft from distortion and dilution.

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Just in time for Halloween (in hindsight, how apropos) The Cimmerian presents its annual Robert E. Howard Days review issue. The trip report this time was written by Brian Leno, who had an interesting perspective on the event — his first journey was made to Cross Plains in 1967, forty years ago. Comparing the town as it was then to as it is now was an interesting exercise for him. There’s also a nice recounting of the field trip to Fort McKavett and Enchanted Rock, with lots of details about those sites that haven’t been covered in a trip report before.

In this same ish there’s also overviews of the two summer pulp shows that prominently honored Robert E. Howard, the Windy City Pulp Show and PulpCon. Toss in a fun Sailor Steve poem by Amy Kerr and the usual Cryer art and Lion’s Den, and it’s a meaty issue. Subscriptions went out on Thursday afternoon, so expect your packages soon.

Coming soon: the October issue — in October, if we’re lucky! — with lots more Cimmerian goodness. Stay tuned.

On a shipping note, the recent increases in postage combined with new rules at the post office auto-serve kiosk have prompted me to make a change, to wit: I’m not going to use Delivery Confirmation anymore, except on very expensive items. The logic being that this will allow me to refrain from raising shipping rates, and that Delivery Confirmation is not nearly as necessary or useful now that everyone is using First Class or better shipping as opposed to Media Mail (which took weeks and had people wondering where their package was). It will also save a lot of time when packing and mailing, as I won’t have to make the labels and the postal workers won’t have to scan them. Rest assured that if your package ever gets lost in the mail, I’ll send you a replacement free of charge and make it right, as usual.

Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News weighs in on the casting of James Purefoy as Solomon Kane in the Michael Bassett project here. Although Purefoy’s Mark Antony was never able to dominate that hypothermia-inducingly cold, ceaselessly calculating cyborg-of-a-Caesarean-heir Octavian during the second season of HBO’s Rome, the actor’s performance bestrode the show like a colossus. Unfortunately, Purefoy’s thespian firepower may be wasted on a snipe hunt; given the signs and portents so far, it is not especially reassuring that Bassett has promised Knowles “a unique and darkly powerful heroic fantasy adaptation which also does full justice to REH.”

Robert E. Howard aficionado John J. Miller, the National Political Reporter for National Review, has conducted an interview with Rusty Burke at National Review Online, focusing on the release of the two Best of REH volumes debuting this summer and fall. Lots of good red meat to savor here.

And for those who missed it, check out John’s article on Howard in The Wall Street Journal from late last year.

Paul Herman at The Robert E. Howard Foundation recently sent me the following information concerning the much anticipated Foundation release The Last of the Trunk, which collects most of the remaining unpublished detritus of Howard’s career.

PAUL: The Last of the Trunk is now available for pre-order. Well, as soon as the website is updated, that is, today or tomorrow. Book should ship in November.

Robert E. Howard generated an enormous volume of written works, around 3.5 million words. In his tiny room in his house in Cross Plains, REH kept a trunk to hold all his output that was still awaiting a sale, as well as works that were rejected, unfinished, something he especially wanted to save, or simply copies of early drafts that he would reuse the back of in typing up another story. At the time of his death, that trunk held literally tens of thousands of pages of material, all hand-typed by REH.

In the early 1960s, Glenn Lord obtained the contents of REH’s trunk. He had the duty, pleasure, and challenge of sorting it all out, and to begin sheparding those works into print. Hundreds of stories and poems poured forth, to see print in assorted books, magazines, and fan publications.

Ever since the publication of Glenn Lord’s The Last Celt in 1976, collectors of the works of REH have been aware of, but unable to read, more than a hundred unpublished stories and fragments. A few were published in the intervening years, but not many.

Finally, in this volume, The Last of the Trunk is being revealed. Virtually all the remaining unpublished prose will be included. While this certainly is not his most memorable or impressive work (those works are already in print), it does fill in lots of blank spaces for the scholars and collectors, and perhaps yield a little more understanding of one of the greatest pulp writers.

This will be the largest REHF publication to date, at 672 pages. Hardback with dust jacket by Tom Foster. Edited and with an introduction by Patrice Louinet. Design by Dennis McHaney. Many of the works are incomplete or unfinished. Many of the complete stories are either boxing or high school papers.

A detailed list of the contents:

Blue River Blues; The Battling Sailor; The Drawing Card; The Jinx; The Wildcat and the Star; Fistic Psychology; Untitled (“Huh?” I was so dumbfounded . . .); Fighting Nerves; The Atavist; A Man of Peace; The Weeping Willow; The Right Hook; A Tough Nut to Crack; The Trail of the Snake; The Folly of Conceit; The Fighting Fury; Night Encounter; The Ferocious Ape; The Ghost Behind the Gloves; Misto Dempsey; The Brand of Satan; Incongruity; The Slayer; The Man Who Went Back; Untitled Synopsis (Hunwulf, an American . . .); Untitled (Thure Khan gazed out . . .); Untitled (As he approached . . .); A Room in London (outline); The Shadow in the Well (draft); Fate is the Killer; The Grove of Lovers; The Drifter; The Lion Gate; Untitled (Franey was a fool.); The Ivory Camel; Wolves – and a Sword; Untitled (I’m a man of few words . . .); Untitled Synopsis (First Draft: James Norris . . .); The Dominant Male; The Paradox; Untitled (Mike Costigan, writer and self avowed futilist . . .); The Splendid Brute; Circus Charade; The Influence of the Movies; Untitled (William Aloysius McGraw’s father . . .); A Man and a Brother; Man; Pigskin Scholar; The Recalcitrant; Untitled (“Arrange, Madame, arrange!”); Untitled (“Yessah!” said Mrs. . . .); The Question of the East; In His Own Image; The Punch; The Female of the Species; The Last Man; The Treasure of Henry Morgan; Untitled (The lazy quiet of the mid-summer day . . .); Through the Ages; The White Jade Ring; The Roving Boys on a Sandburg; Westward, Ho!; The Wild Man; What the Deuce?; The Land of Forgotten Ages; The Funniest Bout; The Red Stone; A Unique Hat; Untitled (“A man,” said my friend Larry Aloysius O’Leary . . .); Untitled (. . . that is, the artistry is but a symbol . . .); Untitled (I met him first in the Paradise saloon . . .); Untitled (Maybe it don’t seem like anything interesting . . .); Untitled (So there I was.); Untitled (Trail led through dense jungle . . .); Untitled (Two men were standing in the bazaar at Delhi . . .); Untitled (When Yar Ali Khan crept . . .); Untitled (Who I am it matters little . . .); A Twentieth Century Rip Van Winkle; The Ghosts of Jacksonville; A Boy, a Beehive, and a Chinaman; Mr. Dowser Buys a Car; A Faithful Servant; A South Sea Storm; The Ghost of Bald Rock Ranch; A Fishing Trip; Friends; Ten Minutes on a Street Corner; The Wings of the Bat

The price will be $53 for REHF members, $59 for non-members. Shipping costs will be posted at the website.

Any questions, let me know!

Just as an irritant to those who think this site is afflicted with too much Tolkien content already, it’s worth mentioning that, all due respect for “Black Vulmea’s Vengeance” notwithstanding, the most unforgettable modern appearance of the word “gibbet” is in Chapter Ten of The Two Towers, “The Voice of Saruman.” On the front steps of the tower of Orthanc Gandalf, accompanied by Théoden, Éomer, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, summons the former head of the White Council to account for himself. From his high window Saruman strives to cozen Théoden with a mellifluous offer of “peace and friendship,” but the king of Rohan has learned a hard lesson extremely well:

‘. . .You are a liar, Saruman, and a corrupter of men’s hearts. You hold out your hand to me, and I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor. Cruel and cold! Even if your war on me was just — as it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit, as you desired — even so, what will you say of your torches in Westfold and the children that lie dead there? And they hewed Hàma’s body before the gates of the Hornburg, after he was dead. When you hang from a gibbet at your window for the sport of your own crows, I will have peace with you and Orthanc. So much for the house of Eorl. A lesser son of great sires am I, but I do not need to lick your fingers. Turn elsewhither. But I fear your voice has lost its charm.’

The Riders gazed up at Théoden like men startled out of a dream. Harsh as an old raven’s their master’s voice sounded in their ears after the music of Saruman. But Saruman for a while was beside himself with wrath. He leaned over the rail as if he would smite the King with his staff. To some suddenly it seemed that they saw a snake coiling itself to strike.

‘Gibbets and crows!’ he hissed, and they shuddered at the hideous change. ‘Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among the dogs. Too long have they escaped the gibbet themselves. But the noose comes, slow in the drawing, tight and hard in the end. Hang if you will!’

Memorable invective is a joy forever, whether it be that exchange or Moira’s scornful rejection of Thorfel’s offer to make her his lawfully wedded wife in “The Dark Man.” Churls will complain, as they always do, that words like “elsewhither,” “dotard,” or even “gibbet” itself discriminate against the 21st century reader, render Tolkien’s meaning inaccessible to the great unwashed or the borderline unlettered. Too bad. Howard and Tolkien were master dramatists when they wanted to be (which is why any REH adaptation that doesn’t revel in his dialogue is foredoomed, which is why no Germanic bodybuilder will ever pass muster as Conan), and their kings and malign beings regularly scale rhetorical Himalayas.

Like [redacted], I’ve devoured J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, but one place where she falls down hard without any cushioning is Voldemort’s dialogue. His each and every utterance is from a broken-spined, jaundiced-with-yellow-highlightings copy of The Supervillain’s Phrasebook. In a steelcage deathmatch or Thunderdome showdown to determine Most Hackneyed, I might bet on Voldmember even against the de Camp/Carter Thoth-Amon, who couldn’t verbally intimidate Scooby-Doo. When the worst of the worst achieve true immortality despite being killed deader-than-dead, (not just Dark Lords, a “human” character like Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop works as an example) it’s often because a language-kindled nimbus of hellfire blackens the edges of every page on which they appear.

gibbet

noun
1. a gallows with a projecting arm at the top, from which the bodies of criminals were formerly hung in chains and left suspended after execution.

verb (used with object)
2. to hang on a gibbet.
3. to put to death by hanging on a gibbet.
4. to hold up to public scorn.

[Origin: 1175-1225; ME gibet (earlier, staff or cudgel), dim. of gibe, staff, club]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

“In any event you hang, either from my yard-arm or from a gibbet on the Port Royal wharves.”

[from “Black Vulmea’s Vengeance”]

Having enjoyed [redacted]’s recent “Thoth-Amon, Lord Voldemort. Voldemort, Thoth-Amon” post, I’d like to follow up on Mark’s references to ophidians as “an eternal symbol of menace, ” and “a symbol of ultimate evil.” They aren’t invariably the ultimate evil in Howard’s work, and therein lies a tale, or two tales, “The Scarlet Citadel” and “The Valley of the Worm.” The former story debuted in the January 1933 Weird Tales, the latter in the February 1934 issue; did readers who were paying close attention wonder about a connection between the Satha of “Citadel” and that of “Valley”?

In the Conan story, once the king of Aquilonia is shackled in Tsotha-lanti’s “very Halls of Horror named in shuddersome legendry,” the next order of business is to introduce Satha, which Howard does by way of “a soft rustling sound, blood-freezing in its implications.” Conan, by this point in his life a formidably experienced practical herpetologist, recognizes “the unmistakable sound of pliant scales slithering softly over stone.” What torchlight is available reveals the owner of those scales to be “the ultimate horror of reptilian development,” an eighty-footer the “titan coils” and footlong, scimitar-like fangs of which beggar “all Conan’s previous ideas of snakes.” Satha’s hide “white as hoar-frost” (Frazetta was unfaithful to the text of “Citadel” in his cover painting for Conan the Usurper) leads the Cimmerian to conclude “Surely this reptile was one born and grown in darkness,” but that doesn’t keep its eyes from being “full of evil and sure sight.” Just how sure, we learn as the story progresses.

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skein

noun.
1. A length of thread or yarn wound in a loose long coil.
2. Something suggesting the coil of a skein; a complex tangle: a twisted skein of lies.
2. A flock of geese or similar birds in flight.

[Origin: Middle English skeine, from Old French escaigne, “a hank of yarn.”]

HOWARD’S USAGE:

He knew men, and he knew that to gain his end he must smite straight with this tigerish barbarian, who, like a wolf scenting a snare, would scent out unerringly any falseness in the skein of his word-web.

[from “The Shadow Kingdom”]

Just received the following missive from Arlene Stephenson of Project Pride in Cross Plains:

Fellows, felt the guys would all want to know that Alton McCowen passed away late yesterday [Friday]. EMS picked him up, died shortly after from an aneurysm. We were all just kind of getting used to the fact that Joan [Alton’s wife, and a founding member of Howard Days] had been diagnosed with lung cancer and getting lined up with treatment options.

No arrangements have been made yet. The home address is 15980 FM 880 S, Cross Plains, TX 76443.

Alton was an irreplaceable paragon to both Howard Days and the town of Cross Plains. I first knew him as Cross Plains Librarian Joan McCowen’s stoic husband, quietly moving in the background helping with all of the little tasks that go into making REH Days work. As I befriended more folks in Cross Plains, I learned that Alton was not just an occasional assistant to Project Pride, but an invaluable presence at the Howard House proper, doing much of the upkeep and restoration duties year-round.

Later still I learned of his artistic side, as it was he who had taken the old pickets of the replaced Howard House fence and begun making picture frames out of them to sell in the gift shop (that story was told by Era Lee Hanke in “Old Pickets Find New Homes” in The Cimmerian V2n4) — all of you lucky enough to have bought one of those while they were available have Alton to thank for it.

It was in 2002 that Alton hung around the festivities long enough for me to have my first real conversation with him. We talked for hours about the history of Cross Plains and Texas, and when Ed Waterman and I began asking questions about the flora and fauna of the region, he suggested we take a ride so he could escort us down the back roads and point out various landmarks. We drove away the afternoon with Alton showing us tinhorns where the old town had been, and the difference between things like live oaks and mesquite, and of course he made a point of showing us some post oaks & sand roughs, explaining to us neophytes their importance to the geography of the region.

Meeting Alton thus became the highlight of the weekend for me, and as a result I came up with the idea of arranging a yearly bus tour for REH Days attendees, with Alton as guide. Project Pride was enthusiastic about the idea, and so 2003 became the first year with a “Cross Plains Bus Tour.” Those of you fortunate enough to take one know how informative and entertaining they were. Amazing vistas of Cross Plains and environs, combined with a detailed knowledge of the region imparted by Alton in his laconic, inimitable manner.

In the last two years eye trouble prevented him from handling the guide duties the way he used to, and so locals Don Clark and Jack Baum, along with Howard scholars Rusty Burke and [redacted], picked up the slack. Now that Alton is gone, I hope those gentlemen will continue to run the tour Alton created for us. Perhaps they can call it “The Alton McCowen Bus Tour” in his memory.

I feel grateful that this summer I was able to spend several hours of quality time with Alton, catching up on Cross Plains gossip, listening to his vision and health woes and his many historical reminiscences, and especially looking at some wonderful old pictures of his family he had discovered, taken when he was just a boy, sepia photographs as clear and evocative as the ones we have of REH from the same time. We had a particularly great talk together — who knows, maybe because on some level he suspected it might be our last. In any event, it leaves me with strong, fond memories to remember him by, and that’s a priceless gift.

Back in 2002, after a weekend of getting to know each other, Alton approached me and my compatriots on Sunday morning, after Howard Days had ended, and gave us each a treasure: a long wood shingle from the original roof of the Howard House, specifically from the area right over Howard’s bedroom, shingles that many years earlier had quietly sat over REH while he pounded out his stories. Alton had patiently written a short note of provenance and signature on each one, and that year we went home with a piece of memorabilia that most fans never get to see.

I’ve since followed Alton’s example and given mine away to another Howard fan who I knew would appreciate and care for it, but I will never forget his gesture, or the many other kindnesses he bestowed upon fans over decades of work as a member of Project Pride. He will be dearly missed.

Alton’s wife Joan (on left, with Anne Rone) must be devastated, and I’m sure she would appreciate any condolences thoughtful Howard fans would send her way. Use the address Arlene provides above.

MARK ADDS: Both Alton and Joan have been good, loyal friends of Howard fans over the years, giving of themselves over and over again, and not just during REH Days, either. Joan helped me on several of my own special projects, and I always enjoyed Alton’s stories and observations during the bus tour. He was also instrumental in helping me piece together the history of the ice house, which has become a feature during the walking tour. Rest in peace, Alton. You will be missed.

LEO ADDS: Here’s Alton’s obituary:

Alton McCowen, age 75, of Cross Plains, passed away Friday, August 24, 2007 in Abilene.

Funeral services will be at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, August 27, 2007 at Higginbotham Chapel in Cross Plains with Matt McGowen officiating; burial will follow in the Cross Plains Cemetery.

He was born to Raymond Alton and Donie (Scott) McCowen in Shreveport, LA on September 14, 1931. After graduation Alton joined the U.S. Air Force. He married Joan Thomas in Park Ridge, IL on March 31, 1951. After leaving the service they made their home in San Diego, CA where he worked at the San Diego Gas and Electric Company until 1977 when he retired and moved to Cross Plains. After moving back to Cross Plains, Alton then worked as a general carpenter and handyman.

He is survived by his wife Joan McCowen of Cross Plains; numerous cousins including, Burlie Paul McCowenof Abilene, Bobby Jack McCowen, Rubin McCowen, Charlene McGowen and Jimmy McCowen all of Cross Plains; and Bonita Horton of VA.

There will be a time of visitation and sharing of memories Sunday, August 26, 2007 at Higginbotham Funeral Home at 5:00 to 6:00 p.m.

In lieu of flowers donations maybe made to the Cross Plains Public Library, PO Box 333, Cross Plains, TX 76443.